John Winterburn
John “Stomper” Winterburn was one of the pioneers of Australian drag racing. He was also the longest serving official in Australian drag racing with over 47 years as a fulltime participant. John officially began his journey into drag racing in 1966 when he assisted at the opening event at Surfers Paradise International Raceway.
John joined the local Holden Car Club in his early teens which was more of a sports car arena but as fate would have it, there was a car show scheduled across the highway from Surfers Paradise on the same day of its grand opening and Stomper had entered his brother Bobs car in that show. The track officials asked if the club members would lend a hand for the opening and that was the beginning of Stompers drag racing involvement.
John readily admitted he was never interested in being an on-track competitor but he was fascinated by the skill and efforts it took to make a racetrack operate smoothly. He continued working at the track in various roles until 1972 when the director of Surfers Paradise resigned to become the director of Savannah Dragway in Townsville, Australia. John took over the reigns as the track’s meeting director at that time, a position he would fill for 15 years.
In 1981 it became obvious to all involved that Surfers Paradise could not survive as a racetrack so along with a group of like-minded enthusiasts, John formed a committee of seven to establish a new venue for the sport. The result of this effort was Willowbank Raceway in Queensland, Australia. As a show of their belief in this project, the seven committee members actually pledged their houses as collateral for the bank funding for the project.
John was named Meeting Director of Willowbank Raceway from its opening in 1985 and remained in that position until his retirement in 1999. While he was involved with the racing world, John earned his living as a pastrycook at the nearby Websters Biscuit Factory where he was the assistant production manager. In addition to his participation at Willowbank Raceway and Webers Biscuit Factory, John was very involved in the Dragfest program that was instrumental in bringing U.S. racers to compete in Australia. John’s commitment to this project was so strong that in 1974 he took leave of his Webers job and moved to the States for six months.
During his first time living in the States, John moved in with Bill Shrewsberry and became a part of his crew for Bills wheelstander car. This gave him the opportunity to meet a lot of the racers and to become aware of their involvement in drag racing. After going home to Australia, John decided to quit his job at Webers and opened a snack bar in Bowen Hills, Australia. This provided John with the funds to continue his commitment to Willowbank and the Dragfest program and help build it into a regular annual feature for both the racetracks and the U.S. racers. John soon became the main source for bringing together the U.S. racers who wanted to compete in Australia and the tracks that wanted to book them.
John was also chairman of the Queensland Hot Rod Association and was responsible for producing hot rod shows at various venues including racetracks. In 197__, John’s lease on his snack bar ran out and because of his involvement with the Dragfest and the Hot Rod events and the amount of travel involved for them, he opened his own travel agency.
Over the years John was responsible for U.S. racers such as Leland Kolb, E.J. Potter, Bill Shrewsberry, Gary Densham and John Force to name a few making the trip to Australia. He was also responsible for several Street Rod folks making the ‘down under’ journey and, helped the entire sport of drag racing develop into a strong venue in Australia. One last note, John admitted that his nickname Stomper was because of his large size 13 shoes.